Sometimes I feel here that I will never truly fully be part of the family because of the language barrier

Like beyond understanding and speaking the language, it's different culturally-wise, the way of using the language for the native speakers. It is not just about using the words or grammar, but there is another deeper layer of understanding and humoring that only natives have and perhaps some rare outsiders that have a strong language skill.

How do you relate with this ?

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unsociableAnthony

Yup, that's also how I feel about spanish speakers even though I speak Spanish as a second language.

If you are new to the US for example, you will never be fluent unless you live here and even if you did because you didn't have your life here and don't know what it was like to trade a fruit roll up for a sandwich at lunch in Kindergarten you will never "get" the culture.

Nobody can teach you these things.

For this reason I long gave up on the idea of ever being fluent in Spanish as a second language. I can even speak it well and even if I became amazing at it, I would never know what a life in Mexico was like.

Boeing · 36-40

@unsociableAnthony I guess we are all foreign up to some degree...<3

unsociableAnthony

@Boeing even my dad is like this

he's from China but lived here for 40 years now and this whole time even though his English is perfect, you cannot take the Chinese out of him, nor can you ever make him really American even he tries so hard to integrate to hilarious effect lol

He doesn't get the little nuances of how something sounds when its slightly off

This is a super interesting topic to me because I am half chinese and half mexican, grew up in the Uk, but live in the US and know quite a lot about this feeling